Saturday, July 25, 2015

The father of the Washington
state teenager who fatally shot four high school classmates and then
himself in October pleaded not guilty in federal court on Thursday to
five new firearms charges.

Raymond Lee Fryberg's lawyer, John Henry Brown, called the new charges
"ridiculous" and said federal prosecutors were charging him for guns
that he voluntarily turned over to the police under the terms of his
release. He also said the state of Washington had given Fryberg a
concealed weapons permit in 2013, and was never told he can't possess a
gun.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ye-Ting Woo disputed that claim after Thursday's
hearing in U.S. District Court. She said five of the guns were found
when police searched his home in March, before his arrest. She said the
handgun used by Fryberg's son was taken by police after the shooting and
the four others were identified by sales records at Cabela's, where he
bought the guns.

Fryberg remains out of custody awaiting his trial, which is scheduled for Aug. 31.

Fryberg was charged on March 30 with one count of illegally possessing
the gun that his son, 15-year-old Jaylen Fryberg, used in the
Marysville-Pilchuck High School shooting that left one wounded and five
dead, including the shooter. He pleaded not guilty to that charge the
next day.

The original complaint said Fryberg was the subject a permanent domestic
violence protection order issued by the Tulalip Tribal Court in 2002
and was prohibited from possessing firearms. The complaint said when
Fryberg bought the gun at Cabela's, he filled out an Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives form and answered "no" when asked if he was the
subject of a "court order restraining you from harassing, stalking, or
threatening your child or an intimate partner."

Governor Robert Bentley announced Friday afternoon that he ordered all
“no weapons allowed” signs removed from Alabama’s rest areas after
readers of Yellowhammer News contacted the Alabama Department of
Transportation (ALDOT) this week asking the agency to justify their
policy.

"Listen, it was a mistake. No one was injured and I owned up to it immediately with
the police," 28-year-old Christopher Reed, who is accused of firing the
shot, told the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette. "I'm glad no one was hurt. I am
willing to take the punishment."

“They won’t give these guys any weapons to carry or keep in a safe.
If we don’t do it, who is going to do it?" armed volunteer and Marine
veteran Kenneth Casteel, who had been keeping watch over the recruiting
center where the shot was fired, told the Columbus Dispatch prior to the
incident. "It’s a matter of safety.”

"I was out here and was talking to a guy who wanted to look at my
AR-15," Reed told the Eagle-Gazette. "I was trying to clear the weapon
and hand it over to him when it went off. I thought it was empty and
must have missed it."

A gunman killed two people and wounded nine others after standing up
and opening fire about 20 minutes into a movie in Lafayette, Louisiana,
police said.

Lafayette Police Chief Jim Craft said the
58-year-old man used a handgun and took his own life when officers
arrived at the scene within about a minute.

Dee Stanley, chief administrative officer of the
city about 50 miles southwest of Baton Rouge, told MSNBC TV that some
of the wounded were in "very critical" condition with life-threatening
injuries. The ages of the victims range from late teens to 60s, according to Craft.

The gunman was sitting in the Grand Theatre 16 "just like everybody
else" before shooting randomly during a screening of the movie "Trainwreck" at about 7:30 p.m. (8:30 p.m. ET), Craft said.

He added: "The information we have at this time
indicates that he was by himself, he sat by himself and the first two
people he shot were sitting right in front of him ... When he stood up
and started firing, people started rushing out. It looks like he spotted
the officers coming in and he turned around, went against the crowd and
fired a single gunshot."

A Navy officer and a Marine fired their sidearms hoping to kill or
subdue the gunman who murdered five service members last week in
Chattanooga, Tennessee, according to multiple military officials
familiar with internal reporting on the tragedy.

It remains
unclear whether either hit Muhammad Abdulazeez, who was shot and killed
on July 16 after he gunned down four Marines and a sailor at the Navy
Operational Support Center in Chattanooga. It's also unclear why they
were armed, as it is against Defense Department policy for anyone other
than military police or law enforcement to carry weapons on federal
property.

A report distributed among senior Navy leaders during
the shooting's aftermath said Lt. Cmdr. Timothy White, the support
center's commanding officer, used his personal firearm to engage
Abdulazeez, Navy Times confirmed with four separate sources. A Navy
official also confirmed a Washington Post report indicating one of the slain Marines may have been carrying a 9mm Glock and possibly returned fire on the gunman.

A white man wearing shorts and flip-flops carried a loaded AR-15 to confront a black man who was protesting a Confederate memorial in a Texas town.

Willie Hudspeth carried a sign reading, “Please move statue to Confederate museum. God said ‘Love everybody,'” during his protest Monday evening on the town square in Denton, reported the Denton Record-Chronicle.

The 69-year-old activist, who has protested the memorial for at least 15 years, said a younger man openly carrying a rifle confronted him as he spoke cordially with another resident who supported the Confederate memorial — which had been vandalized earlier that morning with graffiti that said, “This is racist.”

The younger man, who later identified himself as 22-year-old Stephen Passariello, strode up to Hudspeth and Adam Rinkleff while carrying the military-style rifle and shouted “counterprotest.”

Police arrived shortly after that and told Passariello he needed a sling for his weapon so it would be more difficult to steal.

“I was encouraged to open carry with a sling, although it wasn’t required,” Passareillo said. “I was told that I can stay, but they would appreciate it if I got my sling so people wouldn’t feel so threatened.”

The North Ridgeville man accused of fatally shooting a woman before killing himself was charged with gross sexual imposition days before the suspected murder-suicide, Elyria Municipal Court records show.

Timothy Hoff, 65, was also charged with intimidation on Friday, the day before police said he killed Donna Roode, 62, in a Laurel Circle home.

Police have not explained the relationship between Roode and Hoff. Property records show Roode owned the home. Court records list the home as Hoff's last known address.

Police were sent to the home about 1:30 a.m. when a woman called 911 and said her mother had been shot, according to police.

The caller was in the home when police arrived. Roode and Hoff were already dead.

Basically, those who are incapable of managing their own affairs wouldn’t be allowed to buy a firearm. The new policy would use the same strategy employed by the VA to report certain veterans to the background check system. They take note of anyone who has assigned a fiduciary to manage their pension when they’re not competent enough to do it themselves. The biggest problem with this strategy, is how broad it is. Having memory loss or a brain injury would be enough keep you from buying a gun, even though those conditions are not useful for identifying someone who is crazy or malicious. Imagine if you suffered an injury that prevents you from speaking or writing. It would make sense for you to ask someone else to help you out with your financial affairs, but that might also be enough to prevent you from owning a firearm.

Monday, July 20, 2015

Hobbyists tinkering with their firearms is nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s not often that a drone enters the equation. A new video showing a Connecticut teen’s flying handgun has become a viral sensation online, garnering more than 800,000 views — and raising questions about what some legal experts contend is the next frontier in Second Amendment law.

In the 14-second clip, uploaded by 18-year-old drone hobbyist Austin Haughwout, a small quadrotor helicopter hovers in the air while a handgun attached to its front fires four rounds, each shot causing the craft to visibly recoil. In a Reddit post, Haughwout wrote the drone was homemade using parts from 3D Robotics’s Iris quadcopter, while the gun was semiautomatic a Kel-Tec PMR-30.

Feuerstein, who has about 1.6 million Facebook fans, mentions a man suing two Bible publishers to get the word “homosexuality” removed from the text, an Idaho pastor he says might get arrested for refusing to perform gay weddings and Oregon bakers getting fined $135,000 for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple.

It turns out Feuerstein is a little misinformed about a couple of these stories (we’ll get to that in a minute), but it’s what he does next that’s bringing the video -- which has received more than 5 million views since he uploaded it -- so much attention.

“They are coming after our First Amendment constitutional rights,” Feuerstein puffs. “Well, check this out. This is one pastor that will not bow. Why? Because my First Amendment right is guaranteed by my Second Amendment right.” He then brandishes what appears to be an assault rifle.

“Think about that, ladies and gentlemen,” he continues. “It’s time we finally take a stand and say ‘no more.’ We’re not backing up any farther. We’re not going to allow a tyrannical government to try and strip away our rights as Christians and try to demonize us so that they can make the Bible bigoted.”

It should be noted that the "government" is not doing anything to change the text of the Bible. The lawsuit Feuerstein mentions actually took place in 2008 and was dismissed by the courts,Snopes points out.

The angry evangelist’s complaint about a pastor's arrest is also inaccurate. He’s referring toministers Donald and Evelyn Knapp, owners of the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Couer d'Alene, Idaho, who filed a federal lawsuit last year claiming that the city’s non-discrimination ordinances would force them to face jail time if they refused to perform same-sex weddings.

However, the Knapps were never actually threatened with arrest or fines, city officials said at the time. Additionally, the Knapps registered their business as a religious corporation, making it explicitly exempt from the non-discrimination law in the first place.

Even if all Feuerstein’s claims were true, though, it would hardly lend credibility to the suggestion that Christians should use guns to fight gay marriage. We double-checked and found that “Thou shalt not kill” is still on the list of the Ten Commandments --and there’s no footnote saying it’s OK if you’re doing it to fight against gay rights.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Adam Lanza, Dylann Roof, Elliot Rodger (Credit: AP/Reuters)SalonI get really really tired of hearing the phrase “mental illness” thrown around as a way to avoid saying other terms like “toxic masculinity,” “white supremacy,” “misogyny” or “racism.”- or gun availability, or loose gun laws, or lawful gun owners who never should have been allowed guns.